getting corrupted file sys.errors??

this issue has been following me through 2 distros!!
somehow my ext.3 file system gets corrupted on /dev/sda2.
this happened with of all distros slackware 12.1,and now suse!
i tried fixing it using the install disk,and fsck,neither worked.
so i used my trusty g-parted disk and repaired the file system.
when i rebooted everything was normal again,im using open suse 11.0
on an acer aspire 5315,2gb ram,80gb hd.intel celeron2ghz.
i guess my question would be what would cause that?bad software?
is my hard drive going south?is there anything i can do to prevent this in the future?anyway,i would be greatfull for any input,because ive been using linux for 8 months and it has been solid as a rock,this is really disturbing me!
Thanks,Rick:(

Well if it’s happening in all distros, yes the HD could be failing.

You should install SMART and run a self-test on the HD. (All modern HDs have a microcontroller on board that monitors disk parameters and can perform self-testing.) That will tell you if the HD has too many errors to be safe to continue to use. The OpenSUSE package is smartmontools and the CLI program that can initiate self-testing is smartctl. You should be able to find documentation by searching on smartmontools.

ken_yap;thank you!!ill give that a try and cross my fingers.
thanks again.
Rick;)